Emotional Experience Of Dance - Essay Example

Client DNCE 2393-01 Dance Appreciation Final Reflection Essay Due Dance was a term that I used for moving to music. It wasn’t untilI attended this class that I really began to understand that dance is a form of art. The emotional content of dance was something I never truly considered until I watched ballet with more informed eyes. As I was educated in the history and relevance of dance to artistic movements, I began to see that dance was more than something girls did in groups out in the middle of the floor as boys waited, hoping they wouldn’t have to participate but would still be able to talk to the girl. Instead of just a series of wiggles and shakes, dance has become, for me, an emotional experience that can be enjoyed on an artistic level. As I approach the end of this class, I will leave having had my viewpoint changed by an instruction on dance that is full of history, amazing athletics, and surprising emotions. Dance has a rich and vibrant history. In fact, even before history was written, people were creating music and expressing their joy, sorrow, spirituality, and pain. As events of life occurred, people would dance to celebrate, to appease their gods, and to announce a call to war. Whether it be with nothing other than a drum, or with the complicated musicality of a full orchestra, dance has been a part of human life throughout its history. Even in today’s life, weddings, schools, some churches, and crowds of people at music events, dance with the joy of the movement in their body. During the period of history that would be most often referred to as primitive, dance was considered a way to express and celebrate the events of life and community. As couples wed, sought to birth children, express their sorrow over death, prayed for a good harvest and release their anger over injustice, primitive cultures would use symbolic gestures accompanied by beats as a means to share those things with each other. The natural need to move would lead to movement as an extension of emotion. The earliest evidence of dance would come from paintings and pieces of art. According to James Redmond, in his book Dance, Dance, and Music, “many vase paintings are much earlier than the earliest possible dates for the beginning of organized dramatic performances at Athens and may therefore provide testimony to the character of the pre-dramatic activities which were to grow into fifth century tragedy and comedy.” (p. 25) However the earliest evidence of dance comes from the found art of pre-historic man in the form of cave-paintings. In a painting that is presumed to date from the Paleolithic period of 18,000 to 12,000 B.C., there is some suspected evidence of dance. This comes from “the human figure portrayed Trois Freres cave, often referred to as The Sorcerer. He is shown in a crouched position, wearing an animal disguise, and his legs are splayed.” (McNeill, p. 39) During the time which is anthropologically considered the historical time, the time since evidence of human life has been recorded by the people contemporary to that time, dance has evolved with the ages to represent a great number of different concepts. Even though history was recorded during the time of the Greeks, it is still difficult to know the exact nature of dance because dance is a visual experience. As stated before, paintings are now the best representation. We do know that during those early recorded Greek histories formalized theater began to take place of which dance was incorporated. As time progressed into the Middle Ages, Court Dances became a vehicle for socializing. The written records of ballet date back to the fifteenth century. It is ever surprising how deep and varied the history of something so relevant to our every day life is represented. In watching the movements of the ballerina Galina Ulanova with her partner Vladimir Preobrazhensky in The Waltz in C# from Les Sylphides, the movement is delicate, yet precise.(Galina) I knew that every move was rehearsed and that every trained muscle in her body was responding as she commanded, yet her movement seemed effortless, as if from a core thought that she was creating at the moment. The emotional development was so subtle and surgical that the effect is to find it breathless and cerebral without being athletic. However, the intensity of training in ballet makes it extremely athletic - and this is such a surprise. I was led to watch Mikhail Baryshnikov Marianna Tcherkassky perform the same piece and very different emotions were experienced.(Mikhail) I cannot begin to fully describe how they were different, but it was a very different performance. As is the way of You Tube, after watching the two performances from Les Sylphides, I watched a clip from the movie White Nights as Mikhail Baryshnikov does eleven pirouettes, and I was amazed at the ease and athletic prowess - only to be led to the next video.(White) I watched as a young girl does thirty-six pirouettes. The physical training, intense focus, and commitment of ballet is overwhelmingly surprising once a bit of it is studied. (36 Pirouettes) As I moved from Les Sylphides to the performance of Sylvie Guillem and Jonathan Cope in Swan Lake, I would find that, not only was I amazed and stunned by the seemingly effortless yet physically powerful and precise work of Silvie Guillem’s legs, I was genuinely moved by the power of the emotionally rich performance. I believed she was a swan. As modern dance is explored, possibilities open doors of fusion styles that can interpret life in exuberant and surprising ways. To watch the Alvin Ailey American Dance theater is to see combinations of styles, including ballet and African movement, in order to express a wide range of emotion. In Love Stories, the movement is clearly expressing the range of feelings one might experience in love. (Love Stories) As well, in watching the work of Kiegwin and Company, the act of storytelling becomes a prominent feature in the dance. A friend recommended a choreographer to me named Mia Michaels, a frequent participating choreographer on So You Think You Can Dance, a dance competition on television. The piece that I saw of her work was so emotionally raw and expressive that it touched a place inside me that I didn’t know was possible to reach just by merely watching two people dance.(Katie) As the evolution of dance has come down through the ages, artistic expression in the form of the movement of the body has slid constantly back and forth between freely expressing emotion in improvisational movement without preplanned form, to structured dances that are choreograph every movement of every muscle in the dancer. The social aspects of dance have been austere and cool, as in the court dances of the Middle Ages, or passionate and raw as in the current night clubs. Sometimes dance is for the dancer and sometimes it is for the whole community to participate. This class has taught me how to appreciate the artistry behind the movement. I have watched the assigned examples and have been led to watch beyond what was assigned. As I looked at the dances with new eyes, informed and more educated to the artistic intent behind the movement, I have found a greater appreciation for what I see. As the history of dance has revealed the importance of the link from movement to the expression of the needs of the community, I understand that dance is part of all cultures because all cultures have emotions, and move in an effort to express those emotions. Having participated in this class, I see dancers for the athletes they must be, for the emotional artists they must become, and for the importance they bring to culture and human history. Works Cited 36 Pirouettes. 28 June 2006. You Tube. 3 December 2008. Galina Ulanova Les Sylphides Waltz. 07 February 2007. You Tube. 03 December 2008. Katee & Joshua - Week 4 - Contemporary HQ. 29 August 2008 You Tube 03 December 2008. Keigwin & Company Performing in Vail. 04 August, 2008. You Tube 03 December 2008. Love Stories. Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. 04 December 2008. McNeill, William H. Keeping Together in Time. Boston: Harvard University Press, 1995. Retrieved on 2 December 2008 from Mikhail Baryshnikov Marianna Tcherkassky Les Sylphides Waltz. 21 February 2007. You Tube. 03 December 2008. Sylvie Guillem and Jonathan Cope in Swan Lake. 27 December 2006. You Tube. 03 December 2008. Redmond, James. Dance, Dance, and Music. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Retrieved on 2 December 2008 from White Nights - Mikhail Baryshnikov Does 11 Pirouettes. 02 August, 2007. You Tube 03 December 2008. Read More